ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) by Glenn Langohr

sign. He choked on the expanding hit of skunk bud and coughed out, “Dude, you’re going to paddle out into the ocean with your sample again. That would be the third time this week that your prized buds got all soggy in the surf with you.”

CHAPTER 20
     
    Detective John Maltobano, who those close to him referred to as “Gotti” because he looked like the dapper don John Gotti, walked to his undercover Crown Victoria in the parking lot behind the Laguna Niguel Sheriff’s substation. Narcotic detective Pincher Johnson watched him and knew exactly what he was going to do. He did the same thing every morning. He was going to set his coffee cup on the roof of his car, start the vehicle, step back out of the vehicle with a Bible in his hand, read it for a couple of minutes standing there, say a prayer that finished with the sign of the cross over his chest and then back in his vehicle for a couple more minutes of just sitting there. Detective Pincher wondered what in the hell the detective did in the car? Did he keep praying? If he did, it wasn’t helping him climb the ladder within the Sheriff’s department! Maybe he’s praying for me since I’m the one in the lead for making the most drug arrests in Orange County.
    Detective Maltobano followed his morning ritual that started with prayer. God…Bless all of us at the Sheriff department this day. Grant us wisdom and guidance to serve and protect the citizens who pay us. In Jesus name, amen. With his prayer done, he signed the cross over his chest and thought about how he’d grown up. He remembered how his father was an abusive alcoholic who beat his mother, and then him when he got in the middle of it. He remembered how he gravitated to the streets, started to get high, and was close to joining a street gang for some identity. He remembered how his father died suddenly and then his Mom had a stroke. Instead of getting all the way caught up in the street life, he moved back to take care of Mom. Then he remembered seeing the ad to become a Sheriff and promised his worried Mom he’d become one. Working inside the jail as training, he remembered how close he was to being one of the ones behind the bars. As he did every day, he promised himself he wouldn’t forget how close.
    He drove the Crown Victoria out of the parking lot and got on Crown Valley parkway. He headed toward the beach on his way to Monarch beach and Dana Point on his usual morning route. At Sea Island Drive he took a right that led him up an otherwise untarnished foothill that winded up high enough to see from Laguna Beach all the way to the San Clemente pier. Was Sarah’s car parked out in front of her parent’s house yet? It wasn’t. It hadn’t been for the past month.
    Detective Maltobano thought about Sarah’s file on his desk for that month. Sarah’s girlfriend Nicole had made the call to the Sheriffs to report that Sarah had been raped by a 21 year old white male by the name of Bob Prescott. Detective Maltobano thought about how cloudy the rest of the pieces were. Sarah herself had disappeared after one phone conversation. She admitted she had been in a relationship with Bob Prescott for a little over a month. During that period she admitted she’d had consensual sex with him and then broke up with him. At that point she hung up the phone.
    Detective Maltobano called her friend Nicole and learned a few things. Bob Prescott had found Sarah at a party a week after she’d broke up with him. Nicole said he slipped the date rape drug G.H.B. into her drink while she wasn’t looking and when she was passing out, gave her a ride home. The next morning Sarah called Nicole and explained how she had woken up feeling sick and violated. Her vagina and anus were sore and she found Bob’s discharge in both places along with some on her chin. Since then Sarah stopped going to the beach everyday with Nicole to lie out and watch the surfers.
    Nicole had also said that Sarah had started hanging out with a